Late Night Games
by amandajbruce
Summary: Insomnia produces a card game.


A/N: The idea for this came to me while I was reading a book about, among other things, a woman who played solitaire when she couldn't sleep, and I remembered a version of solitaire I learned at a family reunion when I was nine. I decided playing a card game in the middle of the night would be good for Lilly and Oliver. Plus, I'm a big fan of card games. In my series of interruptions, I'd put this a few weeks after Recipe For More.

Late Night Games

Oliver was imagining it. He had to be. But no, there it was again. His cell phone was vibrating so violently on the table next to his bed that it was threatening to fall right off. He glanced over at the clock. It was almost three in the morning. Alright, so really, it was closer to 2:30 than 3:00, but who was going to get specific in the middle of the night? Who could possibly be calling him?

"Hello?" His voice was hoarse and he knew he sounded more than a little groggy.

"Oliver?"

He recognized the tone immediately and gave himself a mental head slap. Of course it was her. No one else would call him in the middle of the night.

"Yeah?"

"Did I wake you up?"

"Lilly, it's three in the morning." Oliver groaned, stretching his feet out in front of him like a cat waking up from a nap. "Is someone dead?"

"No."

"Is your house on fire?"

"No."

"Is this a code red?"

"Not exactly..."

"Then why are you calling me?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"So, you decided that if you couldn't sleep, I shouldn't be able to sleep either?"

"Pretty much."

In spite of his annoyance at being woken up, Oliver smiled. Lilly couldn't sleep and she didn't call Miley or one of her other girlfriends. She called him. There was a feeling forming in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't entirely put a name to.

"Alright, so, what's up, besides you?"

"I don't know… I just couldn't sleep, so I thought we could talk or do something…"

Oliver sat up in bed now, pulling his sheets away from his body to stand up, rubbing his eyes in surprise.

"Uh, Lilly, there are only so many things you can do in the middle of the night." Oliver paused, and then thought about just what that sounded like. "I didn't mean… I mean.." he sighed and walked over to grab a tee shirt from his dresser.

"I got it," Lilly cut him off.

He could almost hear her trying not to giggle on the other end of the phone. There was a pause in the conversation and Oliver fingered the edge of the tee shirt he had just grabbed.

"Tell you what, meet me in my living room. And bring a deck of cards."

"Cards?"

"Yeah, you know, those things that come in a pack of fifty-two, and there are four different suits," Oliver said sarcastically, brushing his slip of the tongue from a moment earlier aside.

"I got it. I'll be there in five."

Lilly disconnected and Oliver practically flew from his room, rinsing his face in the bathroom and pulling on his shirt before heading downstairs. He just hoped he didn't wake anybody up. He didn't really like the idea of explaining to his parents why he invited Lilly over in the middle of the night. Even if they did treat Lilly like family already, he knew they had their limits.

Lilly sighed, her hand poised to knock on the front door to the Oken house, then she thought better of it. What if she knocked and someone else answered because Oliver hadn't made it downstairs yet. That would be awkward. More than awkward.

What was she thinking? Her not being able to sleep was completely his fault anyway. She dialed his number by force of habit, not because she actually wanted to hang out with him before the sun came up. Not that she didn't want to hang out with him pretty much all the time. Because, obviously if she didn't want to be around him, she wouldn't keep having these dreams that were keeping her up at night and… No. She was not going there. Not now. Not while she was standing on his front step in a pair of pajama shorts and an old tee shirt and… oh, crap. This wasn't even her shirt.

Lilly glanced down at her clothes, her eyes wide. She hadn't been thinking when she got up, ran her hand through her hair and slipped on a pair of flip flops. She had just heard Oliver tell her to come over, so she grabbed a deck of cards from her desk, no longer in the box, held together by an old hair band, and made the trek across her yard and into his. Well, maybe he wouldn't notice. Or maybe he wouldn't remember that this was an article of clothing she had stolen from him just last week. It was, after all, a plain blue cotton tee shirt. Anybody could have one of those. Except, of course, that it was pretty obvious it was a guy's shirt, and it was also obviously closer to Oliver's size than hers. And, she had grabbed it from his clean laundry right in front of him to put it on over her bathing suit top. Again, oh, crap.

Gritting her teeth, she again raised her hand to knock, forgetting her earlier worry, but the door opened in front of her. And there he was. In a white tee shirt that could have come from the same pack as the blue one she was wearing and a pair of flannel pajama pants. She briefly wondered why he always seemed to be wearing flannel or sweatpants when she saw him in the middle of the night. Not that she saw him in the middle of the night often or anything.

Oliver wordlessly held the door open for her and led her into the living room. She took a seat on the couch, bringing her feet up with her, crossing them under her legs.

"Why did I have to bring a deck of cards?" Lilly whispered.

"Because we're going to play a game," Oliver told her softly. Lilly felt her pulse quicken at his words, but she knew he didn't really mean it the way it sounded. "But I think this might be easier on the floor."

Oliver gestured to the open space between the couch and an armchair, and Lilly obediently slid from the cushion on to the carpet. She watched him expectantly as she placed her phone and house keys on the coffee table, her deck of cards on the floor in front of her. She spread her hands through the air in front of her in a "now what" gesture.

"You hungry? Or you want something to drink?" Oliver asked, suddenly afraid to sit down on the carpet across from her. "I could make you some hot chocolate or something."

Lilly raised an eyebrow. Apparently she wasn't the only one who found the night time meeting a little uncomfortable.

"You know, if you want some," Oliver added lamely.

"That's okay, I'm good."

Lilly nodded her head to let him know she was telling the truth, and she watched him carefully as he moved to sit down. His hair was flopping around all over the place, and she could tell he must have been tossing and turning in his sleep since one side didn't look completely flattened like it did when he slept on his side through the whole night. Maybe she wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping lately. Though she doubted his problem was quite the same as hers.

Oliver produced his own deck of cards from an end table, ones that had palm trees on the backs of them, and Lilly had the need to say, "I'm sorry for waking you up."

"It's no big deal," Oliver told her, shuffling the cards he had pulled out. "But you do owe me now," he added smirking at her. "I figure if I ever need you in the middle of the night, you're just going to have to come over, no questions asked."

Lilly felt her face heat up at just what that implied, and she wondered if he was testing her, or if he really didn't know what he sounded like sometimes. There was a part of her that hoped he was testing her. After everything that had almost happened between them, she would like to think that he was pushing the boundaries of their friendship, making sure what was going on was okay. But, he was also Oliver, and he didn't often put that much thought into the words that came out of his mouth. She glanced at his hands as he continued to shuffle, remembering what his hands had been doing in her dream.

Clearing her throat and trying to shake those thoughts from her mind, she asked, "so, what are we playing?"

"You ever heard of social solitaire?" Oliver answered, beginning to set up a game of solitaire with his cards. Seven piles of cards began to build up in front of him, the top card of each one face up.

"Social? Isn't solitaire, by definition, unsocial?"

"Normally, yes, but I learned this at a family reunion last year. Ten of us played it at the same time. We stayed up all night. It got kind of intense." Oliver finished dealing his cards.

"Intense? Solitaire?" Lilly eyed him in disbelief and he smirked at her again.

"Here's how it works. I play my own game of solitaire, and you play yours, with your own cards." Oliver nodded at her deck, and Lilly took the old hair band off, securing it around her wrist as she shuffled her own deck. "But, instead of putting the aces, you know where you put all of your cards to win normally, for yourself, they go in the middle." Now, he gestured to the thin strip of carpet that was going to exist between their two games. "And everybody can play on them."

"So," Lilly wanted to make sure she understood as she began dealing her own cards, "if I put the ace of clubs up there, but I don't have the two yet, you could play your two on my ace, and it just keeps going like that?"

"Exactly. Whoever goes out first wins."

"But what if neither of us gets rid of all our cards?"

"Then whoever gets the most up there wins. It's a good thing we don't have the same kind of cards."

"Right, because palm tree cards are the kind everybody buys," Lilly joked, finishing her last stack of cards, the familiar pattern of an old fashioned deck of Hoyle playing cards staring back at her.

"Pfftt. They're a great conversation starter," Oliver shot back.

"How exactly does that work? You whip out the deck and ask a girl if she wants to play a game, and then say, oh, look how cool my tropical playing cards are?" Lilly asked.

Oliver gave Lilly a look and gestured to her and then back to the cards on the floor.

"This doesn't count. I had to bring my own cards."

Oliver chuckled, asking, "ready to start?"

"Yeah…" she hesitated for a moment, preparing to draw from the deck of cards she had left, "okay, go!"

The two of them began thumbing through the decks in their hands, moving cards as they saw openings. Lilly placed the seven of diamonds on to her eight of spades, and uncovered the ace of hearts where the seven had just been. She placed it in the center of their games, and Oliver immediately placed the two on top of it, almost before her hand moved away.

"You gotta be quick," he told her cheekily at her indignant gasp.

"You should go easy on me. It's my first time."

After her words, there was a moment of silence from both of them as they processed what she said. Lilly hadn't meant to say it, but it was already out there. It was one of the cheesiest innuendoes ever, and whenever she heard it in a movie, it always made her roll her eyes. Now, she kind of understood how people could say it without meaning to.

Oliver finally remarked, "it's not like you've never done this alone before. It's not that different."

Lilly bit down on her lip to keep herself from laughing before responding, "oh, I think it's very different. I don't have to pay attention to anyone else when I'm by myself."

Oliver gave a small cough of amusement as he transferred his jack of clubs on to his queen of diamonds, flipping over another ace, and adding it to the middle. Lilly quickly placed a two and a three on top of it. Oliver met her gaze, eyebrows raised.

"What? I'm a fast learner," she teased him, tucking a few strands of hair behind one of her ears before thumbing through her deck again.

Twenty minutes later, and the two of them were rapidly adding their cards to the middle, trying to beat one another to the punch.

"That's not fair," Oliver hissed, "you can only do one card at a time."

"Well, you're using both hands!" Lilly shot back.

"Because I don't have a deck left, just the cards that are already down!"

Oliver was hurriedly picking up his cards from the carpet's surface, placing them in the designated piles, but Lilly was quickly catching up. She managed to beat him in finishing out one of the stacks of spades, and he groaned, moving more of his cards around on the carpet.

Lilly giggled as she ran out of her extra cards, adding the queen of diamonds to a pile. Her amusement was short lived though when she saw that Oliver really did have a lot less cards left than she did.

"No, that's not fair," Lilly whispered, trying to prevent him from laying down the ten of clubs, grabbing on to his hand.

"Lils, that's cheating," Oliver informed her with a grin on his face as he tried to pull her away with his other hand.

"Come on, Oliver…" she needled, trying to give him the puppy dog face he and Miley liked to use on her on a regular basis.

"Nope."

He added a few more cards to the piles, but he did slow his pace just a little bit, allowing Lilly a chance to try and catch up.

Lilly sighed when she saw that Oliver only had one card left in his hand, and she still had two rows left to finish.

"So not fair," Lilly muttered, watching him place the final king of hearts on the top of the pile.

Oliver just laughed and wiggled his eyebrows at her. Lilly started separating her cards from his, but he stopped her, moving her hand out of the way.

"You want to play something else?"

Lilly thought for a second before saying, "you don't actually know that many card games."

"True. Your options are pretty much War and Go Fish," Oliver joked, leaning forward a little bit as he moved her cards into a single pile for her.

When Lilly took the pile from him, she let the tips of her fingers touch his for a little longer than necessary, but she couldn't help it. Holding the deck in her hands, she swallowed before saying, "you do know a couple different versions of poker."

Oliver's eyes widened, especially since Lilly wasn't looking at him when she said it, and was studiously staring at the cards in her hands, shuffling them now.

"Yeah, but, we don't have anything to bet with," Oliver reminded her, not saying what he was thinking.

Lilly's gaze snapped up to his, knowing exactly where his train of thought was, her face pink as she retorted, "just what are you implying? You can't possibly think I'm going to play a one on one game of strip poker with you when your parents are sleeping upstairs?"

Oliver was poised to protest, but then realized what she said, and with a sly smile, responded with, "are you saying you would consider playing if my parents were not here?"

"That's… that's not what I said," Lilly told him, surprised that he was even going there, trying hard not to let the expression on her face show that she now had a particularly vivid picture of a game of strip poker with him in her mind.

"And that doesn't answer my question," Oliver teased, leaning even closer to her.

She found herself leaning forward as well, drawn to him like a magnet, just like any time they were alone.

"You know, I'm a much better poker player than you," Lilly told him softly, her elbows on her knees. "Would you really want to go there?"

"Oh, you know I can hold my own," Oliver answered, his elbows on his knees now as well, his voice just as soft as hers.

"You've beat me at a grand total of three poker games in your life," she pointed out.

"Three games, huh? That's what?" Oliver let his eyes travel down her form as he spoke. "A tee shirt, some shorts, and what else?"

"You'll never know. I mean, considering how long it took you to win those three games, you'd be out of clothes long before I would."

"You sure about that?"

Lilly didn't answer. In all honesty, she wasn't sure she was capable of it. All of their flirting and joking around, she could handle, but this was different. This was the middle of the night in a room lit by one small lamp. This was a discussion of clothing removal with someone she had been steadily dreaming about in various states of undress for the past few days. It was all very different from their usual banter. Even the look on Oliver's face was different. Fortunately for Lilly, she was saved from an answer by the sound of a creaking floorboard either on the stairs or near the end of the hall on the second floor. She whipped her head around, trying to get a view of the staircase without moving too much.

"Did you hear that?" Oliver whispered, now much closer to her, up on his knees, his breath hot on her neck. Lilly just nodded her head in response, her hair tickling Oliver's nose. He closed his eyes and took a breath, momentarily forgetting the problem of there possibly being someone being on the stairs.

Lilly turned her head back around to face him just as he opened his eyes, and she had every intention of figuring out a solution to their situation, but she was too caught up in the expression on his face. It was one of longing, one she was sure had been displayed on her own pretty often lately. Oliver met her gaze easily, not even trying to hide it. She eased herself away from him, climbing to her feet and picking up her belongings. The middle of the night was not the time for this. In the dark, everything was easier. She didn't want him to do something in the dark that he might regret in the morning.

Slipping the flip flops that had fallen from her feet when she sat down back on, Lilly said, "I should go. I don't want to get you in trouble."

Oliver sighed and got to his feet as well before muttering, almost to himself, "you could stay you know, just like old times."

Lilly gave him one of her small smiles, the ones where she tried to hold back just how happy she was, and told him, "maybe another time."

He nodded his head, walking her to the door, and following her outside, all the way to the edge of the front porch.

"You don't have to actually walk me, you know. It's only a few feet."

Lilly elbowed him in the side as she spoke, and he smiled.

"Hey Lils," Oliver called softly as she made her way down the steps.

"Yeah?"

"You never told me whether or not you accepted my challenge."

She turned, giving him an appraising look before responding. "I think we both know it wouldn't be a challenge."

"Is that so?"

She gave him a wide smile now, shrugging her shoulders before continuing her walk home.

"Well," Oliver added keeping his eyes on her as she moved across the grass, "if you ever do decide to accept, you better wear that shirt so I have the chance to win it back! I know my clothes when I see them!"

"In your dreams," Lilly called over her shoulder as she climbed her own porch. Under her breath, she remarked, "cause I'm pretty sure it's gonna be in mine."


End file.
